Convert Scans to Text with Free OCR

I need to scan and convert text from printed documents about, oh, about once per leap year. So it makes no sense for me to own a scanner or waste hard disk space with OCR software that I virtually never use. Especially when I can use Free OCR to convert scanned or photographed text into an editable document.

Free OCR does exactly what it claims: Nothing more and -- especially important -- nothing less. Upload an image (your choice of JPG, GIF, TIFF, or BMP) or PDF (the first page only gets converted) and this site translates it into plain text, which you can copy and paste to a document on your PC. No site registration is required, but keep in mind that you're unloading text to a Web site -- so I'd be wary of using it to convert nuclear command codes or corporate confidential data.

My results varied from pretty-darned-good-especially-considering-it's-free to hmm-I've-better-start-typing -this-over-by-hand. You'll need at least 150dpi for the OCR engine to do its thing, but I was blown away by the fact that I took a picture of a page from a book with my iPhone 3GS in mediocre lighting and even that gave me serviceable results.